September 



surprised at this result when they met inside the 

 earth. 



The bank or sand-martin is the one untamed 

 spirit of the swallow tribe. Whilst swift and house- 

 martin at times revert to what must once have been 

 their universal habit of nesting on the high crags, 

 the little sand-martin has never left the state of 

 nature, and only avails himself unconsciously of man's 

 handiwork when he tunnels his nesting-hole into 

 the side of some sand-pit or railway embankment 



At the end of the season in 1902, these birds 

 used to congregate to roost upon a line of sallows 

 overhanging a sheet of water near the river, clustering 

 upon the slender wands until they bent beneath their 

 weight. At sundown the sallows were literally alive 

 with this fluttering, twittering host, full of excite- 

 ment and commotion. In September, 1903, the 

 water had been drained off and the sallows cut 

 down, and some time before sunset the birds used 

 to get up high into the sky and move round in 

 wide arcs, suddenly condensing and as suddenly 

 dispersing, until before sunset they had drawn off 

 in such a manner as scarcely to afford an indication 

 of the direction in which they went. I failed to find 

 their roosting-place, but judging from the general 

 movement of the birds coming in from the more 

 distant reaches of the river, and the direction in 

 which they headed when last seen, I inferred that 

 it lay somewhere west of Stretford, and at no great 

 distance. 



'3 



